Study: Unified marketing driving ROI

Unified marketing is a fairly new term to the online space, the basic tenets are that by unifying data brands can create more personalization, improve customer service and obtain better customer segmentation - which leads back to the targeting/personalization key. The problem? Not enough brands are confident in unified marketing.

According to a new report unified marketing is looming large on the horizon for many online brands, but most also admit they aren't sure how to unify the data they have at their fingertips. Tealium collaborated with Econsultancy on the report.

"The whole industry is grappling with having disparate marketing applications and data sources. This study looks at the issues and how some organizations are overcoming them," said Stefan Tornquist, vice president at Econsultancy, an independent research and media company. "We've been talking about the potential for unified data and applications for some time, and it's exciting to see companies finally benefiting from it."

Some interesting findings from the report include:

• Most brands are concerned about data fragmentation
• 47% report 'unified customer views' is key for success, 14% say they have 'strong capabilities' to create those views
• 45% report using data warehousing to unify efforts, 28% say they 'aren't doing anything'
• 18% of SMBs and 13% of enterprises use the cloud to unify marketing data

Just over half of those surveyed said that for data to help them succeed it has to be simple to understand and work with.

"We strongly believe in the power and promise of marketing technology and, as this survey suggests, businesses are just scratching the surface of what's possible when a unified marketing strategy is implemented," said Tracy Hansen, CMO at Tealium, the global leader in enterprise tag management and real-time unified marketing solutions. "Tealium provides a platform for marketers to 'build their own marketing cloud,' so they can easily connect and integrate all their best-in-class marketing solutions. This enables them to drive more profitable cross-channel engagements in real time using their existing applications."